The character of Helena, in "All's Well that Ends Well," furnishes a
striking contrast to Ophelia, and tempts the student of Shakspeare
to bring both types of womanhood into one field of view. Ophelia
loves the Lord Hamlet, who is her "expectancy and rose of the fair
state,"--one to be proud of, cling to, and adore. But, when her
father's interference begins to draw her into the contrary current
which sweeps her life away, she develops no power of resistance. Even
her love is not strong enough to stem the stream that rushes suddenly
from subterranean caves to cover her feet and climb to her heart. She
has no will for withstanding her father's resolution: her passion has
not yet ventured out of its girlish stage, to gather strength and be a
threat to her docility. She submissively returns the Prince's cherished
words and presents, lets the old father rule her, and goes crazed.
But Helena, though also loving one above her rank, being only a
physician's daughter, cannot bear the idea of giving up Count Bertram.
Her love is not at first returned; but she contains love enough to
furnish both hearts, and she actually follows him to court, to make a
captive of him, hoping to light a mutual flame. Such a procedure as
that stood not within the capacity of Ophelia. No doubt it offends
our conventional feeling; so that Helena must not only succeed, but
manifest pure and noble qualities on the strange road she takes toward
success, if she would gain our sympathy. The play begins quite early
to canvass for our favor by showing that she is a noble woman who
proceeds thus, and it is in the interest of a love that intends to be
pure and legal. It is death to be without Bertram; and love will dare
all things, risk life itself, to save the life of love. Why not in
a woman as well as in a man? Nay, more likely in her case, for that
special reason of womanhood, that positive instinct to be dependent,
and to find life at once swallowed up and blessed by something or some
person outside of Self. A modern woman, who desires to be independent,
is eager to find something upon which she may depend. The Self of the
average woman does not really subsist and reach perfect consciousness
until the lover makes the claim of another Self upon it. For that
which at first appears to be a threat of absorption, annihilation of
the individual, turns out to be the bliss of being rendered back. It
is only by the loss of mere individuality that an immortal person is
established.
What kind of a woman is this one who sallies forth to turn a man into
a husband? Shakspeare endows her with natural traits so positive
that they claim no repose, are contented with no proficiency, and
continually project improvement. "Her dispositions she inherits, which
make fair gifts fairer; for where an unclean mind carries virtuous
qualities, there commendations go with pity, they are virtues and
traitors too; in her they are the better for their simpleness; she
derives her honesty, and achieves her goodness." That is to say, not
content with being well-born into an amiable disposition, she meditates
the career of character. Such a mind allied with purity justifies
itself, and can venture behavior which a weak person would be wrecked
upon; in whom, therefore, the attempt would be culpable. Conventional
manners are the haven within whose break-water the weak ride at safety,
where nothing tests and strains their shallow build. When Helena
goes to court on the pretext that the King's malady can be cured by
a prescription that her dying father confided to her, the King, who
prefers male doctors, puts her off and under-values her capacity; but
she persists with a sincerity so sparkling, a tone so prompt and clear,
a will so hard to repulse, that the King perceives no ordinary woman:--
"Methinks, in thee some blessed spirit doth speak
His powerful sound within an organ weak:
And what impossibility would slay
In common sense, sense saves another way.
Thy life is dear; for all that life can rate
Worth name of life, in thee hath estimate,
Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, honor, all
That happiness and prime can happy call."
So this ennobled daughter of a doctor aspires to wed the noble son of a
countess. Shakspeare attacks the social etiquette of his own age and of
all secluded circles. Helena should be filled with grief for the father
lately dead; but her "imagination carries no favor in it, but only
Bertram's."
"I am undone: there is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. It were all one,
That I should love a bright, particular star,
And think to wed it, he is so above me:
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere."